a/n: Every fairy has her queen. Crossover!AU (with Frozen)
"You're dying."
"Tsk, silly of me to forget your perceptive eye, Maleficent."
Three and a half centuries had passed since they last laid eyes on each other. A separation of their caliber required a reunion of equal dignified muteness, melancholic solemnity, and grave reverence of one another. Yet, an impudent acknowledgment of an irreversible corporeal feature shattered the firmly set illusion. In less than two seconds they reverted to youthful bickering, sharp tongues, and crisp edges, and although their sharp banter was entertaining it certainly wasn't productive.
Finally resting her eyes on The Queen's face, Maleficent concluded change was an infrequent guest in the household. Harshly heart-shaped, the Queen's face teetered down with sunken cheeks and high cheekbones. Everything about her was white, white and icy blue, the two shades being irritatingly abundant in the peculiar land. Her hair, skin, and fur, extracted skillfully off of polar bear hides-those she commanded, made her more snow than fairy. The few articles of furniture shared the same ghastly shade of blue, and this too remained static since her last visit, which was scarcely remembered.
"As it is of me to forget your penchant for evasion," she sliced the frosted air with her searing words, "but if you so choose to behave in this predictable manner, I will step up to the task."
"I do not expect anything less of the grandiose Maleficent." Her eyes lacked irises, and the sole trace of detecting sight was the faint but constantly seeping sapphire center, peering deeply and widening lightly.
Maleficent curved her hands around her staff, breathing in its heat, and examined the closed, private quarters. Was it too much to open a window, or to make one for that matter? She knew she was in no place to speak of interior design, for she resided in closed, dark castles, but her cold, dark castles were aware of what they were. The ice palace was not. There were books, expectedly, written by man and other creatures alike. A chandelier, more forebodingly grotesque than invitingly exquisite, hung at the ceiling, and the mirror, yes the mirror, was on the far side of the room where a window might have been placed.
Recognizing the mirror's fair and pristine condition after so many years, "My, my, and may I inquire to whom shall you bequeath this beauty to, upon your demise?"Its figure was just as she remembered her, and she scolded herself. It was equally impudent to forget something as frigid, unforgiving, and powerful as the Troll Mirror.
Tilting her head in a manner where she appeared far less interested than she was, The Queen tapped her chin contemplatively with her finger, "That old thing rarely occupies my time these days. I doubt I shall give it to anyone."
"To no one?" Still seated, she glanced at the innocently nailed mirror on the wall, and returned her inquisitively piercing gaze to its owner, whose boredom had increased tenfold in the short moment, "Not even to your dear sister?"
"Sister?" Amused but refusing to laugh, she breathed an airy, solid sigh, one void of mirth, "A fickle child does not deserve such power."
"Nor does it belong here unattended, vulnerable to equally reckless hands," she replied sharply.
On good days the mortal world humored her, and annoyed her on worst. For this, she was assured to find ample amounts of revelry with the mirror's disappearance in the mortal realm, but her mischievous fun would've turned into cringing distaste as the inherent dismissal of a sacred and powerful artifact became clear.
"The elder, Grand Pabbie, certainly wants it back," she explained smoothly and removed her tired gaze off it, "rights of the trolls or some similar drivel," a glimmer of life entered her eyes, and her colorless lips twitched victoriously, "but I cannot do that. It is mine as it was, as it is, and as it will be."
"Even after you die?"
The muscles in her face contorted oddly as she mused, "Ah, you are concerned."
"My interests lie for what mischief this mirror will cause when it is left unattended," Maleficent reprimanded.
"A concern I lack." Using little effort the known distance of height drastically shortened. Standing several inches below, her peerless white eyes stung Maleficent's blazing onyx, and her smile was meditative as silky fingers folded around a polished, frosted staff. She'd witnessed this display countless times in the past, but now, the tendered weaknesses in the hands were noticeable.
"When a fairy of your magnitude disregards ancient relics of the past, powerful and priceless artifacts, then appropriate actions must be taken."
"So I presume you wish to take it?"
Her unreadable expression didn't immediately conclude the Queen was unimpressed, or offended. Snow twitched and flaked, reviving itself in a matter of seconds, and snowdrops surrounded them in a benevolent storm. They took their time sprinkling on her dark robes, and she watched with mild disgust as white clashed with her black. She swiped at the small mountains decorating her shoulders, and channeled her frustration at the culprit, eyes narrowing and muscles tightening appropriately.
"And I presume this was your intended will?"
Striding elegantly to the mirror, snow trailed and flourished where it was, blemishing Maleficent's cheeks. She scowled at its persistence, and watched as The Queen raised her hand to press it upon the cold, glass surface.
"My will is for winter to find its place in the new world," she said in a breathless gasp.
With severe cruelty, Maleficent realized the reality they were currently striding towards. Though the fairies had not decreased in number, the humans were increasing in their numbers at a drastic rate. Babes were born, sometimes died, and were born again while their elder counterparts continued to create weapons of war, against each other and otherworldly creatures of all kinds. In her kingdom the royal families still showed respect to magical beings, especially of her greatness, but there were others she knew of, far less respectful and far more vengeful.
She strode silently beside The Queen and stared in the mirror's glass, seeing neither reflection, "You will die for this to be accomplished," she murmured.
"There are incidents recorded when a fairy left their essence in a human child, but the child was either too sickly or family too poor to sustain it. The child quickly died, very sad." She blinked rapidly, "But if I were to land my essence at the right moment, the constellations will tell-,"
"A child of nobility would be safer," she surmised.
"Yes, but they have tendencies of locking unwanted children up. Hiding them in attics or letting them starve until they are just an ink blot on the family tree," she calmly replied and straightened her back, "for myself to pass on, this child must be in the most protected environments but also the most public. The parents simply cannot write her off or conceal her as some mystery to be discovered."
Only a certain type of child met the criteria the Queen listed, "Royalty," and Maleficent faced her completely, and felt something within rise heatedly, neither bad or good but somewhere in between, something she didn't find easily when it came to others and expressing it to them, "What an abominable concept."
The Queen's shoulders lifted, "Her safety and protection will be ensured. She'll be someone they cannot ignore or lock up, someone they'll have to obey." Her fingers crawled inwards in a vice grip, and she thrust the winded hand in the air, staring blindly into the mirror as if the future was projected clearly to her, as if she could see the young woman with vivid blue eyes, platinum blonde hair, and colorless, freckled cheeks.
When Maleficent peered in the mirror her flawless shape was reflected, "Your success is not guaranteed."
"I pray your concern fails to fill me with nostalgic residue."Stoicism accomplished what the cold could not, and she wore her mask defiantly against Maleficent, though the latter stood in an emotional tangle she had not anticipated being thrust into. The Queen's stare was unburdened, lifted, and in its endless pools she dared her to speak again in subdued protest.
"I speak the truth." Her words were straight and unflinching, defiant of the rising tension between them. And for what it was worth, which she estimated to be of little value, she didn't desire for it to escalate as it did those some three centuries ago, "Your plan is fantastically implausible."
"Fantastically?" Her hands folded on her staff's angular crystal tip, and pondered over the words, finding more interest in them than Maleficent intended, "My, you are concerned. But I fail to understand, after all snow fairies lifespans do not reach the prolonged states as your brethren."
Maleficent couldn't deny that. Snow fairies were elemental beings and their magic and lives were conjoined directly to their seasons. Oh, their time passed far longer than any mortal could ever wish for, but when it came to those such as Maleficent, and even those self-righteous good fairies, their lifespans were juvenile, almost mockingly so. An eternal winter, they were often referred to as, but what a misleading title to give those children born of winter. Maleficent didn't seethe internally or release a crippling remark; she didn't feel anything but a slight sting in her chest. Her thoughts slowed, pausing in their practical detractions, and she questioned what change had befallen her in the three centuries passed?
"I must admit." The Queen said comfortably, "You are right to be concerned. The process is tricky, and she has yet to be born."
"Not for some time," she added.
"Yes, not for some time." Quieting, they listened to the gushing wind. Tenderly forgiving gushes swallowed their figures, and Maleficent watched as The Queen's neutral expression was briefly suppressed by something else. In those several, broken seconds the majestic projection of might crumbled and was substituted with an emotion weak and small, cringing on sight. As quickly as it arrived, it departed the same way.
Forlorn stoicism twisted their throats, "We will meet again, Maleficent." Her milky eyes coursed like midnight waves, and she let out a curt, heaving sigh before showing her fur adorned back, disappearing in the delicately weeping snow.
Mirror facing her, the unanswered questioned festered in the air. Its essence polluted the frosty air, and the stinging pride in her chest increased tenfold. She touched her chest reluctantly, forcing some pressure on the area, and her eyes blazed where her beating heart laid, concealed by robes, skin, and bone. The sensation wasn't the sort she regularly felt for herself but the warmly glow often reserved for another. But why? Her mind continued to ask, why did a foreboding poison feel to taint the warmly glow, so unfamiliar and welcoming.
"Fate has never favored us," damaged anger crystallized in iced fractals where the pride seedling sprouted, and green flames flickered off her robes' ends as she swung them in an inconsolable demonstration. Her body morphed into smaller and smaller, infernal circles as she was absorbed into her staff, disappearing together as a dark shade. Everything remained, static and unchanged, in its white and icy blue vicinity, and the mirror reflected in silence, had reflected all it had seen and intensified its cruelty as it was made to.
-8-
"You know its magic, right?"
"Anna, it was a present from The Eastern Kingdom to commemorate my birth," she shelved the books, annoyed they'd been taken away from their organized stations. Her half-hearted glare fell through at Anna, sitting on the window cushions, eyes aglow with wonder. At the moment, the younger princess' attention was occupied with the mirror she found in the old nursery during her expeditions with Olaf. Her excitement was contagious, as she ran to Elsa's quarters, expressing her pleasure in her recent discovery.
"Elsa, Elsa, its engravings are like diamonds!" Elsa sighed, conceding that yes the engravings did shimmer like diamonds, but it wasn't the kind of mirror to keep in an old, dusty nursery. After much thought they decided to nail the mirror in the library where it could be seen in its proper form, and she too admitted, observing it near the window and under her papa's portrait, that it was its loveliest in the sunlight.
Anna slid off the cushioned window and pranced, stopping when Elsa shelved the last book. Grasping her shoulders, she turned her sister around so they could stare into the mirror's clear reflection together, and yes, Elsa saw their crooked smiles, amused and carefree. It'd been too long, far too long since she laughed so carelessly.
Face pressed against hers, Anna beamed mischievously, "An old, hideous wicked fairy cursed Princess Aurora, and after she was slain, her castle was raided. This mirror was found among its remains, but no one wanted to sell it or buy it. Comes with its former owner being a wicked fairy...they've got a bad reputation you know."
"And they've given us a cursed mirror?"
"Yeah!"
"It belonged to Queen Aurora. It was her beloved mirror, and no, Anna, it is not cursed." She cocked an eye at her, and gripped her a little tighter, playfully, "And may I ask where you received this information?"
Anna grinned hastily, "From some person, some place, some thing," and avoided having to admit that she didn't rightly remember the person responsible for relaying the fantastical story. That it wasn't a who but a how, she simply knew the story, and knew it to be true. It was history, and not merely an enchanted fairytale to captivate children's wandering attention, "But that doesn't matter! What matters is that it's true!"
"Fine, fine, fine, so maybe it is true. It doesn't mean we have time to dawdle, now lets go, the Ambassador is waiting for us."
Anna pouted and groaned, suggesting the Ambassador should come later, but Elsa was unmovable. She pointed to the door, and Anna walked, finding the inner strength to endure another tedious examination from another foreign dignitary, far too stuffy for her tastes.
"Elsa, don't be a hypocrite," she chided gently at the door.
Elsa didn't intend to be. Standing with her sister, their faces caressing each other's, the ripple was too quick for Anna to detect. The mirror's flat surface, and by extension their flat reflections, were temporarily disturbed as another's intruded. Its whiteness was far crueler and crisper than she'd ever seen in her twenty two years. The woman's melancholic appearance didn't alarm her as it should've, and eerily familiar were the green embers surrounding her, creating a protective wreath around the mysterious waif.
Sprayed on the glass, her hands absorbed its coldness. Veins bright in the sunlight and almost transparent in their nightly azure shade, she felt the air flee her throat as it tightened and convulsed against itself. Her feelings were acute and stumbling, more than befuddling, and they weren't hers, she realized. And yet, for knowing they weren't hers to possess, they sought refuge within her as if they had waited years for her to set her claim on them.
Emerald coated fire and brimstone quivered,"Maleficent," she breathed, and was ignorant of its meaning. The striking pain in her heart was easily identified, and tears pricked at her eyes, an emotion she had yet to experience in her twenty one years. Old, regretful, and she frantically strived to process the overwhelming intrusion, to the point where her knees buckled at the failure.
"Elsa?" Anna's voice swayed her backwards, and she blinked, returning to the world and to her sister's worried expression, "Elsa, what's wrong?"
Solid blocks tumbled from her eyes, and landed silently on the carpet. Her eyes fluttered, and the feeling, as intense as it was, quietly shuffled in the back of her haunted memories.
"I-I'm sorry, the Ambassador is waiting." Stopping at the door and Anna's expression, "Alright, it's far more exquisite than I could have ever dreamed."
Anna narrowed her eyes and hooked her arms slowly around Elsa's, "Isn't it just," she said warily but brightened quickly, "and you've gotta tell me about this ambassador, this kingdom of the black sun!"
"Yes, yes, I will, promise." Her grip tightened as the door closed silently behind them, "But first, tell me what you know. We went over this in our studies."
Walking together, hand in hand, Anna's words frizzled in Elsa's hearing. She tried to keep up, to contain the vivid language, but green embers and peerless blue eyes clouded her attempts. It wanted in, in, and she was determined to keep it, in. She didn't know what in it searched for, and heat flushed her waxen cheeks as they neared their destination.
"Yes, I'll put it away." False security vowed and ashen knuckles buckled protectively in Anna's warm skin, "Somewhere no one can find it."
There laid the lie. A lie internal and aged, its source impossible to find in the permafrost labyrinth, and within the library's brightly painted walls the mirror remained. Nailed securely underneath the coronation portrait, inside she waited, and inside she was found, time and time again.
Interred in sapphire's recalcitrant glow, the grieving emerald expected to be abandoned as it often was, but fate was defied, at last, and its design was rewritten sadistically so. Stole and clipped, trapped in the mirror's walls, Elsa was willing to snatch at the charring flame.
a/n: We, the audience, are led to believe Maleficent dies at Sleeping Beauty's end. I'm firmly on the Maleficent Lives side. Bitter tears wept over Elsa's concept art in which she was the Snow Queen; she was very Maleficent-like in one draft. I wish the Snow Queen herself, of actual ice an snow, was incorporated in the final product, but isn't that what fandom is for? The Queen is my interpretation of the character, and yes, she does have a name...that has been lost in time.
I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.
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